From Terry Sutton MBE, a 90 year old still working journalist, author of three books (one, Dover in Second World War), talks about his life as a wartime evacuee from Dover to South Wales.

I was evacuated from Dover late May 1940 until December
1944. During those years I lived in at least ten homes, in five towns and
attended six school buildings, followed by another three by September 1945.

On June 2nd 1940 around 3,000 Dover
children were evacuated by special train to South Wales. I was not among them.
My father, a journalist, realised in May the danger faced by Dover and
evacuated me to my grandfather’s home in Gillingham, Kent. From two homes in
Gillingham I was evacuated to Sevenoaks (where I went to a church school) and
from there rejoined my elementary school in Ynysddu in South Wales. There, and
in neighbouring Pontllanthraith, I spent time in three host homes.

Still in 1940 I transferred from that primary
school to Dover Grammar School for Boys in Ebbw Vale, South Wales where I remained
until December 1944. During that time I was hosted in three homes. I and my
classmates received a restricted education (by mostly retired teachers) in two
or three school premises.

Questions and answers:

What was it like living in other people’s homes?

Not much fun. In my first billet, in Ynysddu, on
the first day the youngest member of the host family poured a tin of condensed
milk over me-and me in my best suit. He was showing I was not very welcome.

In my first billet, in Ebbw Vale, I was placed
with a middle class family where the house proud lady did not want me (a
scruffy pre-teenager) in the house alone. On one occasion when I came home from
school I had to wait outside in a snowfall until she returned. Later she
relented and let me stand in the garage! But, with a few exceptions, the Welsh
families were very welcoming.

How did the host families exercise control over you?

In my second home in Ebbw Vale, my “auntie” was a
widow and I was left to do virtually what I liked. That often meant going out
at night into the town and causing trouble, including frightening old lady’s in
the non-illuminated streets.

My third and last home in Ebbw Vale was in a gated
garden estate where the husband and wife were childless. They were so kind to
me, especially when my brother Roy, serving in the RAF as a pilot, died when
his aircraft crashed into the sea.

Living on this estate of big houses, with
reasonably wealthy hosts, I guess I had one of the best billets in town. They
had an aged housekeeper and she used to try to get me to do my school homework.
But, once again, there was very little active control. I was lucky not to get
into trouble with the police.

What were school lessons like?

At Ebbw Vale my grammar school originally shared classrooms
with the local Ebbw Vale grammar school. One week the local boys and girls went
to school in the morning and we occupied the classrooms in the afternoon. The
next week the roles were reversed.

But this could not continue. Later the rump of my
school was cramped into a Victorian? house called Pentwyn House where
classrooms, in winter, were heated by coal fires in the grates. Outside, at
play, we wandered around the overgrown garden.

Once again, after school, there was very little
control what we got up to, except during army cadet parades. I was more keen on
cadets than lessons and was soon promoted to the unit’s company quartermaster
sergeant!

Our uniformed cadet military band was very popular
in South Wales’ towns and often led civic parades for such events as War
Weapons Week.

In the early days in Ebbw Vale some of the very
senior boys, in the cadet force, helped train the Ebbw Vale district Home
Guard.

What happened towards the end of evacuation?

When the enemy shelling of Dover finished, in September
1944, there were growing demands by parents for our return home. The
authorities were not happy at this idea because Dover schools had been damaged
during bombing and shelling. But eventually they relented.

What an exciting day that was when the remnants of
the evacuated school (school rolls had decreased as some lads had given up and
gone back home) climbed into a special train that took us home to the badly
damaged “Front Line” town of Dover.

Had you not been in your home town of Dover for four years?

Yes, regularly. Every school holiday, from 1942
onwards, a group of us returned to Dover. That was at least three times a year
(plus once for a short half term visit), Christmas, Easter and the six weeks of
summer holidays). It meant we were in Dover for three of the 12 months. It was
a stupid idea. We were evacuated for our safety yet returned for three months
each year to face the bombing and shelling dangers that Dover people suffered
12 months of the year. But, for us boys, what exciting days they were including
the train journeys alone and through the blitzed ruins of London. Going back to
school (and to our billets) at the end of holidays was not much fun.

Was it exciting in 1944 returning to the former school building?

It would have been but that opportunity was denied
us. Our school building, known as The School on the Hill, was occupied by the
WRNS (ladies serving with the Royal Navy). As a result, after the December 1944
holiday, we returned to our classes in a variety of buildings in war-torn
Dover.

My year took over a 19th century former
art school (where some 40 years earlier my father was a pupil), attached to the
Town Hall; another section of the school was housed in a fairly modern art
college; while the sixth form moved into a former residential property. There
we remained until the WRNS vacated our school building and we moved in, at
last, in September 1945. Of the (eventual) seven years I was at Dover Grammar
School I was only in the proper school building for about two and a half years.